Introducing Ars Premier 2.0, your new Insider Access

Today marks the launch of Ars Premier 2. you.

Eight years, one month, and three weeks after the launch of our original Subscriber program, we're very excited to announce Ars Premier 2.0. Day in and day out, our goal at Ars Technica is to give readers what they want. Ars Premier 2.0 is about extending and enhancing our engagement with you through a series of exclusive "insider access" programs that will add to the Ars Technica experience.

What do Premier members get? In a nutshell: Exclusive access to insightful Ars Technica content. Live discussions with Ars editors, industry innovators, and a seat at the editorial roundtable. The premier Ars browsing experience, with ad-free layouts, single-page-article options, downloadable PDFs and access to full-text RSS feeds. Subscriber-only forums with HTML markup and special notification options, and much, much more.

Exclusive access to Ars content, editors, and experts

Access to subscriber-only content, including news, analysis, interviews, and deep technical articles. Every month there will be exclusive content for Premier users, and you'll also get early peeks at select blockbuster features and technical articles. Next week: an exclusive look at architecture trends from Jon Stokes.

Moderated live discussions with Ars editors and industry players. Next week: a subscriber-only discussion with John Siracusa on all things Apple.

Full access to the Ars Technica PDF Library: a repository of all of our feature reports and reviews, in portable PDF format.

The Premier Ars Technica experience

Banner-free browsing on Ars Technica means no distractions, just content. Better yet, the ad-free pages are optimized so there are no "holes" where ads used to be. It's a tighter experience.

Subscriber-only access to full-text RSS feeds of Ars Technica news.

View long, feature-length stories on a single page, right in your browser. Or get a downloadable PDF for offline viewing or printing.

Premier Community membership

Membership in the Ars Editorial Roundtable. Only subscribers get access to this special area, where editors will discuss, refine, and propose ideas for editorial and community betterment. Help guide our reporting focus, propose topics, and vote on our writers' next research projects. Get previews of projects and the opportunity to give input into those projects at very, very early stages. Not only will you be the first to know new developments at Ars, but you'll often play a role in their design—if you want.

Exclusive posting access to The Lounge, Soap Box and Velvet Room forums. You'll also have access to a seasonal Bizzaro Lounge bacchanalia, and the ability to vote other users into a hall of shame. (Bizzaro Lounge is a seasonal purging of civility in the community, but what happens in Bizzaro Lounge stays in Bizzaro Lounge.)

No banner advertisements on the Ars Technica forums.

Special community promotions and discounts

Mum's the word right now, but we're going to give back to you guys in several ways.

Get exclusive access to discounts and deals from partners, if you want them.

Got questions? First, check out our FAQ. This is especially informative for pre-2.0 subscribers, and anyone having problems with setup, billing, and that kind of stuff. More info on obtaining support can be found there, too. In closing, I just want to say that I am proud to be taking the Ars subscription program to the next level. At a time when media companies all over the world are just now starting to think about their "digital plays," we feel great to be more than 8 years into our own. And we have you guys to thank for it, because you constantly give us your thoughts through the polls, surveys, and feedback threads.

241 Reader Comments

Read FAQ, would like to know more about the ad free experience. I'm still seeing ads, and clicking the link in the FAQ does not work, the link is broken. I've logged in, logged out, clear cookies, taken off and nuked it from orbit, but they're still there.

On another note I think you've crafted a nice set of benefits that will have me renewing my subscription. I look forward to learning more about some of the esoteric items like Bizarro Lounge and the round-tables.

Ars thinks too much of itself if they believe people are going to pay a subscription to access "premium" content. The only publication that has made this work is the WSJ, and even they are are considering ditching the idea. This just seems like another doomed attempt to monetize a blog. I can sense the pressure coming down from the Conde Nast suits.

Originally posted by rhassinger:Ars thinks too much of itself if they believe people are going to pay a subscription to access "premium" content. The only publication that has made this work is the WSJ, and even they are are considering ditching the idea. This just seems like another doomed attempt to monetize a blog. I can sense the pressure coming down from the Conde Nast suits.

I don't think any one benefit by itself justifies the subscription fee, but taken as a whole, for me, I think they're compelling. The ad free experience and full text rss alone are two of my favorites.

Originally posted by rhassinger:Ars thinks too much of itself if they believe people are going to pay a subscription to access "premium" content. The only publication that has made this work is the WSJ, and even they are are considering ditching the idea. This just seems like another doomed attempt to monetize a blog. I can sense the pressure coming down from the Conde Nast suits.

They've had a subscription program for years. And I've been supporting them for years. It's not like this is completely new, just more features for what we were already paying.

$50 for no ads. That's a good deal. That to me is a better benefit that Lounge and Soapbox access. Based on previous discussion of ad free access to the forums for subscribers, the value of online advertising must be right down ATM.

=)

for those still seeing ads, there's a link from the FAQ that will "clean up and re-authorize" your account and that nuked the ads for me. look at all the bright shiny content! I don't have to skip anything!!

Originally posted by rhassinger:I can sense the pressure coming down from the Conde Nast suits.

Actually, they had nothing to do with this. The same people run Ars today that ran it 10 years ago. And we don't wear suits. In fact, we often don't even wear pants.

quote:

Originally posted by vampireaquid:I like the exclusive content bit, but don't become jerks and start making all of your content "exclusive." ESPN did that last year with their football coverage, and it was irritating BS.

We absolutely won't. There will be a steady flow, but we won't, for instance, take a major news story and hide it from non-subscribers. Our exclusive content will aim at adding to, rather than holding back from, news and analysis.

Originally posted by rhassinger:Ars thinks too much of itself if they believe people are going to pay a subscription to access "premium" content. The only publication that has made this work is the WSJ, and even they are are considering ditching the idea. This just seems like another doomed attempt to monetize a blog. I can sense the pressure coming down from the Conde Nast suits.

Well, I have been a subscriber for many years - not because of premium content access (which we didn't get back in the days), but because Ars was, and has been, incredibly useful in keeping my computers, software and sanity functional. And since my business depends on all three, I felt it only right (good karma, perhaps) to contribute a little to keep it going. From my perspective, all Ars is doing is giving me a little reward for something I was doing anyway.

Yeah, to anyone who thinks Conde made us do this, you should know that our previous two site designs have been made specifically so that we could turn off ads for subscribers and not have holes. We just never had the time or resources to implement this subscriber feature before now. Anyway, I'm serious--go back and look at screens of the previous two designs if you can find them, and notice how the ads are in spaces that can collapse. Offering this (plus some of the other features) has been a long-time dream of ours, and it's us who pitched Conde on it, not the other way around.

Or an old slogan For a long time, our tagline was "news from guys without pants." Incidentally, the originator of that much-loved taglline was Will Smith, who used to work for us and is now running MaximumPC.

Well blocking ads across the web is really easy*, but the other features might compel me to take the dive. I've been waiting for this to be revamped for a couple years now but just wasn't swayed by PDFs and a couple social forums.

But those in-depth Hannibal articles I keep asking for on every survey? Yeah, I guess I could shell out for those.

*collapsing the space is even better though so kudos on finding a significant layout improvement

Don't even remember that slogan, and I've been reading for nine years. At any rate, I vote it should make a return.

I also just realized my subscription lapsed... a while ago. Probably good that you guys threw in some more noticeable benefits this time around — I only ever subscribed to support the site, but it was easy to forget to re-up! I suspect you'll see a much better renewal rate now.

I'm onboard with my $50. Great community to support. Real people not "suits". Orbiting HQ with everyone running around with no pants? A little TMI but hey, knock yourselves out! You guys rock no matter what you're wearing.

I'd be inclined to subscribe if it meant more articles like Jon Stokes' OS X Snow Leopard review and fewer childish articles filled with snide attempts at humor and half-baked factoids that have resulted in waves of protest from long-time readers who remember when ARS was the premier tech website.

Ken Fisher / Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation.